My travels through the sleazy world of independent wrestling as seen through the hazy murk of nostalgia and filtered through an addiction to pop culture. Written by a whiny, inconsistent, absent-minded procrastinating Grammar-Nazi.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

This is another piece of art that I commissioned for my girlfriend Bridget, part of the seriesoncats.This one I got Eric Angelillo to do. Eric had a great animated music video in last year's YoungCuts Film Festival called Thunderstrike.

Inks with a bit of Colour

This piece of art was for Bridget's recent birthday.

This is what I asked for:
"The gray kitten pulling itself wet out of a bathtub, while a dry white and cream Siamese
and a dry Brown and beige Tonkinese look on
with amusement."

Final Colors

Eric thought that the picture worked better with a bucket instead of a bath-tub and I have to agree with him.

Bridget is equal parts delighted and horrified by the picture. (She thinks that the cats are being mean to her Maggie, the grey kitten. Her first reaction was "On, No! Poor Maggie!")

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

I made an unexpected trip to Ottawa a couple of weeks ago, ostensibly to watch the C*4 wrestling show "Level Up 2011" but really to visit Francois (Phrank) Morin in the hospital - possibly our last chance to see him.

I drove up with Bakais, the Wolfmun (Twiggy and Beef Wellington) and Sexxxy Eddy. We left Montreal early to give ourselves time to visit Phrank in the hospital before we went to the C*4 venue, but when we got to Ottawa, we were told that Phrank couldn't see anyone, leaving us in Ottawa with time on our hands.

It was Beef who planned our expedition, announcing that we had to go to the pizzeria across from the venue that served the "REDONKULOUS" burgers. The venue is the Knight of Columbus Hall at 260 McArthur. The pizzeria is Best Pizza at 295 McArthur.

Home of the RIDONKULOUS Burgers

The first thing that you need to know is that the "REDONKULOUS" burgers are not on the menu. There are no pictures of them in the wall. You have to ask for this monstrosity.

When you ask the waiter will look at you quizzically."You want the special burgers? I will have to get my brother."

The chef comes out of the kitchen to explain his special creation (and I may be mangling the details a bit.) You choose 1, 2 or 3 burgers. I think he said that the triple burger was a pound of meat. The burger is served with the patties, cheese, onion rings and chicken strips all in the burger. As if this wasn't enough food, you also get salad and french fries.

I think he said that the single burger was $14, the double burger was $16 and the triple burger was $18.

One quick mention about service to redeem my Karma after lashing out at Tutti-Frutti yesterday. When we placed our original order, no one asked me if I wanted anything to drink. When the waiter brought our cokes, he realized his mistake,apologized for forgetting about me and asked me what I wanted. While getting ready to photograph the carnage to come, I had been wistfully looking at a poster for Alexander Keith's, so I had a Keith's Red, leading to Twiggy making "Llakor's a drunk" jokes all night.

My point being that there is nothing wrong with making a mistake as a waiter as long as you correct it - make it right. And as it happened, because the waiter forgot to ask me right away, he asked me at the exact moment when I would order a beer.

The terrifying thing about the burger (aside from its size) is that all the individual components are good in and of themselves. The onion rings are top notch. The chicken strips are excellent. The burgers are good. So it's not just a lot of food, it's a lot of good food.

Still it is a lot of food. You would think that there would be a lot of half-eaten plates...

That Plate is Empty! How Did That Happen?

In addition to a lot of technical discussion about how you fit this much food into your mouth and running commentary about how good the food was, the burgers led to a bit of an eating competition sparked by the insanely competitive Sexxxy Eddy.

But who is the Canadian Indy Wrestling Eating Champion?

Is it Sexxxy Eddy?

Eddy Hitting the Wall

No, Eddy is like the guy in the Marathon who starts out at a sprint, races well ahead, until eventually all of the other runners pass him collapsed on the ground, reflexively humping a cute female volunteer.

Well, if Eddy isn't our champion how about the man who is named after food? Your hero and mine, Beef Wellington?

Ass-Punched by Salad!

I frequently say that wrestler's in-ring persona are just elements of their real personas magnified. Eating contests bring out Heel Beef, Rules Lawyer in full force as Beef argued that the contest was to finish the burger not to clean the plate. "I did not come here to eat salad!"

Nice try Beef. Clean plate beats full plate every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Could our Champion be that most unlikely of underdogs, Twiggy?

Your Runner-Up!

No, but Twiggy was a solid and surprising second.

No, your Canadian Independent Wrestling Eating Champion is a most unlikely hero...

Your Winner: Bakais!

Bakais is a force of nature when it comes to eating. He is relentless. Unlike Eddy who sprinted and faded, Bakais eats at a continuous and relentless pace. It is like he has Pac-Man DNA somewhere in his family tree. Or perhaps the better analogy is that Bakais eats at the same pace that he counts a three-count, steadily and consistently.

*****

According to Best Pizza, they are planning to add these REDONKULOUS Burgers (not their real name) to their menu. As well as an 8 (I think) pound pizza.

I can't help but feel that that is a shame and possibly a mistake. I think there is a neat little ceremony like a secret club involved in learning about the burger from word of mouth, coming in and asking your waiter about this thing that is not on the menu and then waiting while he summons his brother the chef to explain it. I think 90% of the enjoyment in the burger is the ritual of ordering it. I don't think it is anywhere near as much fun to just point to it on a menu.

I would encourage them to put up a nice picture of the burger, maybe put up a hall of fame/shame of pictures of people eating or trying to eat the burger. Maybe eventually a t-shirt. But I would leave it off the menu.

But that is just me.

*****

One other thing of note.

I have been trying to sell sponsorships for wrestling in Montreal for something like 8 years with limited success. Twiggy and I casually mention that we are there for the wrestling show and both brothers were immediately excited about being sponsors.

Yep. apparently I do a better jon of promoting Mark P's promotion than I ever did of promoting the IWS,

I am not sure if that will actually happen, but if you are a C*4 wrestling fan or wrestler, you could do worse than to go to Best Pizza, order some food and encourage them to follow through on becoming sponsors.

*****

One final note.

Some of you may be wondering how I fared with the REDONKULOUS SKYSCRAPER Burger of DOOM!

I didn't.

Are you kidding me?

That thing would put me in the hospital faster than you could say "Holy Insulin Batman!"

Monday, April 11, 2011

I noticed about a week ago that the Nickels at Place Dupuis had been replaced by a Tutti-Frutti. I like the one down at Atwater quite a bit - so on Sunday on my way into work to catch up on some of the stuff building up on my desk (cause I'm a procrastinating workaholic) I decided to stop there for brunch.

I got there about 12:30. It was busy, but not catastrophically so. The restaurant was about 60% full.

The hostess led me to a booth in a corner in the emptiest section of the restaurant. On our way to the booth, the hostess told one of the waiters (a young thin squirrelly guy) to serve me.

After about ten(!) minutes, she came back with a box of specialty teas, which naturally had Earl Grey in the bottom right-hand slot, the one closest to the customer when you hand them the box, so the person who filled the box obviously knew that Earl Grey was the most popular tea in the specialty tea category.

The hostess then left me to tampon dip my Earl Grey tea bag in the bubble of hot water that they give you.

*****

See, Coffee is Treated Special!

Quick Digression About Tea

This tea bitching is not exclusive to Tutti-Frutti. Very few café's or restaurants in Montreal do a good job of serving tea. They either deliver it in a cup, so you do the tampon dip (a practice that I loathe) or they bring one of those silly glass bulbs, which hold exactly a glass and a half of tea (a highly silly amount) and which are incredibly hard to pour without spilling tea all over the table or they bring you a small metal tea kettle which seem perversely designed so that when you try to pour from them, the tea instead of going into your cup, pours along the side of the spout and down your sleeve.

Silly Metal Tea Kettle!

The only real benefit to the metal tea kettle is that you can lift the lid when it is empty in the forlorn hope that your waiter will notice that you are out of hot water and will offer a refill. With the glass bulbs it is always obvious when you are out of hot water, but more than half of the time waiters are oblivious to the fact that you are out of hot water. In fact, they frequently offer you a coffee refill and you have to remind them that they served you tea.

Brown Betties: Decorative & Useful!

The civilized way to serve tea is obviously to use a Brown Betty. They are available in multiple sizes and colours, they fit the aesthetic of all these breakfast places and you could probably convince people to pay a surcharge to have a Brown Betty for the table. You can pour them without spilling tea all over the table. And a waiter can refill them with a pot of hot water, instead of taking away the silly bulb and bringing it back full. (The need for two trips no doubt one of the reasons behind the reluctance to offer refills.)

But as I mentioned, that is a problem endemic to almost all restaurants in Montreal. Not a special problem of Tutti-Frutti in general or the Place Dupuis branch in particular.

*****

The promotional table has milk!

Lesson#2: Make Sure That the Table is Properly Set

About a minute after the hostess left me tampon-dipping my tea in the silly glass bulb, I realized that she hadn't brought me any milk or cream.

Not so huge lapse, in theory the waiter should be by any second to take my order.

Right?

Right?

Turns out, no not so much.

Lesson#3: You're a Team. Try to Act Like One.

At first, I was trying to make eye contact with my waiter. Then I was trying to make eye contact with any waiter. This, by the way is the difference between good service and mediocre service. In a restaurant devoted to good service, if you make eye contact with a waiter - other than the one serving you - that waiter will either come over and ask if they can help or send your waiter to do the same thing. Sometimes all the customer needs is milk or butter or a napkin and you can make the customer happy very quickly. Sure it means going out of your way to do someone else's job, and you won't benefit from an extra tip, but on a team if you do that for your team-mate's tables and your team-mate does it for yours, you both get extra tips and you both win. (You also get more repeat customers, keeping you both employed.)

Finally, (about five minutes after the tea was delivered and fifteen minutes after I originally sat down) a waitress drifted by to the table next to mine to ask if they wanted their bills and did they want one combined bill or separate bills.We made eye contact, she smiled... and then she left without asking me if I wanted anything.

Technically, she did nothing wrong. Her section was well served, but she had an opportunity to offer better than average service and at that she failed.

Lesson#4: Act Like You Care

After trying to make eye contact for another five minutes, I gave up and started preparing to leave the restaurant in a huff.

Tench-Coat Comedy is more of a Jacques Tati Thing

The key to a good impressive storming off session is to do it quickly and gracefully, but I am a klutz so naturally this did not happen. Instead, it was more like an outtake from a Mr. Bean skit. I wear a double-sectioned black trench-coat and when I took it off I must have inadvertently pulled out the inner sleeves, so I was having massive difficulties putting on my coat.

My waiter was so completely oblivious of this that even though it took me about three minutes of slapstick comedy to (mostly) succeed at putting on my trench-coat and grabbing my things, it is only as I was actually leaving the table that he finally shuffled over...

So, after I have been in the restaurant for a good twenty-five minutes and I am leaving, the sullen little squirrel finally comes over, dragging his feet and meekly wondering if I was ready to order. When I pointed that I had been waiting for him to notice that I existed for close to a half-hour, his lame half-hearted excuse was that he was busy. (Although to his credit he did say that he was sorry, even if his body screamed, "No. I'm Not!")

First of all, Mr. Squirrel Waiter, you were lying. I have been trying to make eye contact with you for ten minutes. Unless the restaurant is in imminent danger of collapse and only your teeny shoulder is keeping the wall from falling down or they have mops on the bottom of your feet so that you can clean the floors while you shuffle around, you were not too busy to come over and collect my order.

Second of all, saying that you are busy, implies that I am not important. God know this is probably true, but if you were trying to calm down an angry customer you could at least pretend that they were important. Don't say, "Sorry, I was busy." like the customer is somehow interrupting your packed schedule, "Sorry, I should have been here earlier, can I get you a free drink for your inconvenience?"

*****

Brief Digression About Score's

Wet but well served

I was at Score's about three weeks ago. There was a hockey game on, the waitress in my section was busy racing around dealing with drunken Habs fans. After about 15 minutes, she suddenly remembered that I was there and rushed over. Even though in her rush to come over she tripped over a Habs fan and drenched me with a full bucket-size glass of ice water, she still gave me better service than the Squirrel Waiter.

First, she was really apologetic (even more so once I was drenched). Her body language said sorry, she didn't try to make excuses, she didn't blame the water cascade on anyone but her own clumsiness, she gave me a free drink and a free dessert and she upgraded my meal from a chicken leg to a chicken breast.

In other words, she treated me like I was important. That is good service.

*****

Lesson#5 There are Opportunities to Make Things Right

The Squirrel Waiter could have made things right by being apologetic instead of acting like he didn't want to be there and that I was an obstacle preventing him from completing his busy schedule of filling his day with nothing.

The hostess could have made things right by trying to keep me in her restaurant, by apologizing for her staff or while I was fumbling with my trench-coat in the entrance of her restaurant coming over and trying to make things right.

She didn't do that.

Good service is a choice. It takes effort. It takes focus. It takes enthusiasm.

The staff at Tutti-Frutti (Place Dupuis) or at least the staff who there on this Sunday had none of those qualities.

I visited Phrank in the hospital just two Saturdays ago with a group of wrestlers after the C*4 wrestling show in Ottawa.

(I wasn't planning to go to watch C*4, but Twiggy works in my office and he got the call that if we wanted to visit Phrank, we needed to do it that Saturday.)

Originally, we were going to go before the show, but we were told not to come when we got to Ottawa. During the show, Phrank's girlfriend Raph got in touch with us and told us that of course we should come no matter how late it was.

A Stinky Video Gama

The nurses freaked out when about ten of us invaded the hospital
after midnight and we had to dispatch our most good-lucking charmer to
seduce her into letting us stay. It didn't take much, the fact that we
were all from Montreal, that's all. They knew we were there to say
goodbye.

In the room, Frank had a bit of difficulty talking, but none making himself understood. I honestly don't know whether we made him laugh or he made us laugh, whether it was Mr. "Salt and Pepper" trying to furnish his apartment with knick-knacks from Phrank's hospital room with Phrank's enthusiastic assistance. Or El Generico showing Frank the sign a female fan had given him "I Want to Ride Your Ginger Beard!"

After about a half-hour that was almost a party, the nurses kicked us out because we were keeping the whole floor awake.
To the very last, I don't think I ever saw Phrank without a smile on his face.

Two things that I left out of the article because they seemed out of place and a bit self-promotional for me and ISW...

First I had the privilege and honour as Inter-Species Wrestling Worst Ring Announcer of the Multi-Verse to announce Phrank's first match as Stinky the Homeless Guy. As ISW's Beloved Commissioner For Life, I made Stinky the ISW Other Wrestling Champion. (Mostly by accident, I was busy haggling with Giant Tiger for one of his shirts when Stinky came up with the old ISW belt that he had found in a dumpster - where Kevin Steen had thrown it - and asked if he could keep it.)

Me taking credit for any of that would be a bit like a tree hit by lightning taking credit for inventing fire, but I am glad that I was part of Phrank's life and career.

Also Didn't Use This Picture in the Article

The other bit that I cut out was the explanation of why Flip D. Berger turned on his tag-team partner in Lady and the Tramp and cost Stinky the title.

No plate-glass windows were involved. That would be too simple - also cruel to plate glass windows.

According to ISW lore, Flip D. Berger lost a "Winner Eats the Loser" match to Moohammad the Terrorist Cow, only instead of cooking Flip and eating him, the Bovine Bomber "ate" Flip's mind, brain-washing the McJobber into quitting his McJob, dropping the D. Berger from his name, joining PETA and becoming a vegetarian.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

I have mentioned it before, but I was diagnosed late last year with cataracts in both my eyes, a condition that had literally crept up on me. While my diabetes made the situation worse faster, it was not the cause of the problem. In other words, I do not currently have to worry about diabetic retinopathy (which would be really bad news - possible eventual blindness bad news.)

But it did mean that to get my vision back to a state where it doesn't feel like I am looking at the world through a thick bridal veil, I would need to have surgery. The left eye first and then the right eye.

NO! NOT MY EYE!!

While outwardly I projected calm (not always successfully) internally, I was freaking out. Eye injuries have always been a bit of a phobia of mine. I suspect partly this has to with the fact that I have been a comics reader since I was about 6 years old when my Dad bought me my first comic, a Dr. Strange illustrated by Frank Brunner I think.

(My Dad really bought the comic for himself and used me as his beard. When I had my own money to buy comics, I began a love affair with the Legion of Super-Heroes.)

Comic books have long had a perverse fascination with eye injuries. This might have something to do with the fact that many comic book artists worked as freelancers and relied heavily on their eye-sight to be able to earn a living. Of course, one might wonder why there isn't a similar fetish for hand injuries?

Seriously, I had nightmares.

Joe Shuster, the Canadian-born artist of the original Superman comics, eventually went blind. It was partly his condition that shamed Warner Brothers into giving Siegel and Shuster a life-time pension and health benefits when the first Christoper Reeves Superman film was about to come out. One could argue that the eye injury motif was an unconscious expression of the anger and guilt felt by comic book artists over the neglect of a man whose artwork essentially launched the comic book industry. Great theory, but since much of the eye-injury artwork happened before Shuster started going blind, it requires a very mischievous time-travelling editor to make it work.

My first surgery was scheduled for last Tuesday. Because I am diabetic I get to be operated on first thing in the morning, with my surgery scheduled for 7AM. I got to the Royal Vic a little after 6:30 AM just as they were opening the doors to the admitting department and taking people's health cards and hospital cards. My hospital card had my name misspelled ("Micheal") and the name of my street catastrophically misspelled ("Watcohrn") but my general philosophy with stuff like that is not to complain to people who can do a lot worse to you than spit in your soup.

And some daymares.

(As it turns out, the admitting secretary was a bit of a stickler for details and eventually corrected all the mistakes which I appreciated.)

Once the door was open, the waiting game started as about twenty-five people, some patients, some friends and family of patients patiently waited for thehir names to float to the top. I was eventually seen about 7:15 AM. As soon as I sat down, the phone rang on the secretary's desk,

"Yes, he's here. He's right in front of me. No, he wasn't late. Yes, he will be up in five minutes."

And from that point onward I was being rushed around like a white rabbit with someone else holding the watch and yelling that I was late, late for a very important date. Which naturally led to me being even further late as the admitting nurse led me to the changing room, left me to change, but never bothered to mention that I was supposed to come back to her office when I was done changing.

No, not this kind of dream.

Then the other huge obstacle was that I had to choose my new lens, a choice that no one had bothered to mention until that point I would have to make. The admitting nurse was quite cross with me that I was unable to give me a quick choice.

"The hard lens is free. The soft lens is $300.00."

"What's the difference?"

"The soft lens is better for diabetics."

"Why?"

"You will have to ask your doctor."

All of this time, every time someone has something to say to me or ask me they are simultaneously dropping a small river into my left eyeball, so by the time I make it down to the operating room, my left eye is better hydrated than a fish and I am confused and petrified.

"We can fold the soft lens so we need to make a smaller hole to insert it."

"Is there a lens where you don't have to make a hole at all? Because I would like that one."

"Fraid Not."

"Right. I am all in favour of smaller holes in my eyes. Soft lens it is."

The Gay Pirate

And with that it is all happy drugs, look up, look at the ceiling, look up, look at the ceiling, keep looking at the ceiling, seriously the ceiling watch it, I don't mean to alarm you but that ceiling seems suspicious better keep an eye on it and we are done and I am being wheeled back to the elevator and the eye clinic. .

They stuck a blue and silver eye-patch (perforated with holes so I could see) on me and my vision improved immediately like flipping a switch, even if I ended up looking like a gay pirate according to my girlfriend. Because I was wearing a patch, the left side of my vision saw perfectly clearly for the first time since Vladimir Guerrero played right field for the Expos, while my right side was cloudy like there was a roll of gauze between me and the world. Which was always there, but I was never really aware of it, because I had nothing to compare it to and my eyesight had deteriorated so gradually and in both eyes.

I have seen the world through Harvey's eyes.

With one side super sharp operating at 110% and the other side limping around at about 20%, I quite litearlly felt like I was seeing the world the way that Two-Face does.

(When I mentioned this to my Dad, he said, "... Or Jonah Hex" because he is a secret comics nerd.)

The next day in Dr. Galic's office (where I spent two hours cooling my heels and resting my eyes) I got my marching instructions: two different sets of eye-drops each one drop four times a day with a five to ten minute gap between each drop. (As I am sure you can imagine for a klutz like your truly getting the drops into my eyes rather than anywhere but, is a bit of an adventure.) I am to wear the patch at night when I sleep to prevent me from pawing at the eye, a bit like making a dog wear those goofy plastic collars. I don't have to wear the patch during the day - which is a good thing, because besides making me look like a Gay Pirate, wearing the match also makes me invisible to waitresses and taxi drivers.

I was expecting Dr. Galic to ask me to wear sunglasses to protect my new left eye, but in fact he wanted me to do the exact opposite, to exercise the eye as much as possible. he did warn me that since the retina of my left eye was dilated, my vision might be a little wonky at first and in fact that Wednesday, St-Catherine's did seem over-exposed like a badly taken or badly developed photograph.

We are here for your eye sir.

It has also proved a bit challenging getting my two eyes to operate in stereo with one being so much stronger than the other. (Although oddly, the right eye is better at reading - what little of that that I am doing currently. It is also somewhat better at helping me work on the computer and do things like write this blog.

I am scheduled to have the right eye done at the end of April. About six weeks after both eyes have been done, I may need to get reading glasses for reading and using the computer. I also haven't quite got around to paying the Royal Vic for the lens. (I am still a bit ticked off about not being told about the options ahead of time.) Think they will send Jude Law to repossess?

Wonder if that enlarged eye helped make Jonah a better tracker?

Until then, I am Two-Facing (Jonah Hexing?) my way around life with a strange blind spot in my right-side peripheral vision.

*****

One Final Post-Script

After apologizing for my medical team leaving me so poorly briefed on my lens choices, Dr. Galic explained another reason for soft over hard lenses.

"Since we started using the soft lens, we no longer have 70 year-olds who have had this surgery falling down and their globes splitting open like a grape."

YIKES!

All things considered, I am happy that I picked the non-exploding eyeballs option for my lens.

[UPDATE]

It occurs to me on re-reading this that a casual reader might assume that I am somewhat less than grateful to my doctors. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am delighted to be able to see this well out of left eye and desperately looking forward to being able to see this well out of my right eye.

On the other hand, it can be a bit annoying to go to your eye doctor's clinic, arrive on time for a scheduled appointment, pay $40 for eye-drops and then wait for 2 hours to be seen.

($40 for eye-drops that probably cost them a nickel, because that is legal to do while charging $40 to see the doctor and giving you the eye-drops for free is illegal. "The Law is a ASS")

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About Me

I am the Festival Director for the YoungCuts Film Festival; the head writer/publicist/SHILL~ for the International Wrestling Syndicate; and the Commissioner and Worst Ring Announcer in the Multiverse for Inter-Species Wrestling.